Unpopular Motorsport Opinions
- Thread starter Liquid
- 1,953 comments
- 170,384 views
- 8,239
- United Kingdom
Hmm, the old guard who are given a free pass, the rich old dodders and inexperienced youth? It's not great really.
Yeah, who cares? They're terribly dull.
Because 9/10 races are utterly boring I'd imagine. We only go there "because Monaco, because glitz and glamour". We don't go there for the racing because there rarely is any.
- 12,123
- Liverpool
- CARBOYXJR
People tend to love DTM but I find it terribly ironic that the "cost effective" era has spiraled so quickly into ridiculously expensive prototype silhouette GT things. The races can be decent sometimes, but the series needs a rethink. If you had Class 1 style cars with an NGTC-esque performance equalisation and cost reduction system you'd be on to a winner.
- 44,184
- Blackburn
- Furinkazen_54
How's BTCC done this year? 10 winners from 15 races. Obviously it's not working :colleges:
LMP2 are just like P1 without hybrid units.
- 12,503
- Ireland
- The__Luke
To be fair BTCC still punishes drivers for doing well and promotes mediocrity so I think 10 winners isn't the best number to bring up.
I've stopped watching BTCC, mainly because I've forgot of its existence, but when I've watched it the driving standards have been awful.
I guess my unpopular opinion would be that BTCC is hideously overrated.
I've stopped watching BTCC, mainly because I've forgot of its existence, but when I've watched it the driving standards have been awful.
I guess my unpopular opinion would be that BTCC is hideously overrated.
- 11,660
- GTP_Orido
In NSW, Sydney, Australia, late 90s to early 2000's, the JDM imports fans already into drifting ( early stage though ), Hot version, BM and drift videos were already in circulations ( Initial D also may have some influence ). Mostly from tuning scene, street racing to track day racers, some got curious and went drifting ( R32 GTST, S13, S14 and RPS13 were famous back then ) AE86 was already expensive car too, due to drifting popularity.
I already did gymkhana / drift practice with a mildly tuned S2 R33 GTS-T in 2002
- 6,293
- Canada
First ever encounter with drifting I had was a video from Gran Turismo 2, back in the early 2000s. It was two friends using split screen who were tandeming with each other...one was a dark red RX7. After that I started searching for drifting videos on Napster and other file sharing programs. I'd already watched the drift bible a few times over before I discovered Initial D.In NSW, Sydney, Australia, late 90s to early 2000's, the JDM imports fans already into drifting ( early stage though ), Hot version, BM and drift videos were already in circulations ( Initial D also may have some influence ). Mostly from tuning scene, street racing to track day racers, some got curious and went drifting ( R32 GTST, S13, S14 and RPS13 were famous back then ) AE86 was already expensive car too, due to drifting popularity.
I already did gymkhana / drift practice with a mildly tuned S2 R33 GTS-T in 2002
It was probably different for you in Australia because you guys get JDM cars. As a kid growing up in Canada, I had never heard of a Supra, Skyline, Silvia, etc before Gran Turismo came out
@Akmuq, Initial D is a Japanese anime cartoon about street drifting and street racing, and is losely based on the true story of Keiichi Tsechiya, aka Drift King. If you like cars, it's really worth watching. You can find all the episodes on YouTube - start from the beginning otherwise you'll be lost, and personally I prefer the Japanese version with subtitles as opposed to the English dubbed version.
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- 44,184
- Blackburn
- Furinkazen_54
- 6,254
- Washington State
- OutlawQuadrant
Purely personal preference but because I find diesel powered cars incredibly dull. Narrow power bands, torque that gives the sensation that it's less of a struggle driving the car and an overly clinical noise. Prime example is the Audi R8 LMP and the R10 TDI.
Guess which one I would pick.
A bit of an aside but had the Nissan GTR LMP 1 been set up as rear powered (like those early 2000s Panoz LMP1s), I would've supported that all the way.
- 44,184
- Blackburn
- Furinkazen_54
- 6,254
- Washington State
- OutlawQuadrant
I'm not a professional driver so I can't really say. I just get the impression that all that torque means you can simply manage the throttle and you won't lose as much time compared to an engine that may go from nothing to a big surge of power.
Btw, I forgot this earlier but:
In its current form, I actually don't mind it that much. It's the whole video review that needs to be jettisoned. Just use scoring loops like with regular cautions.
- 12,503
- Ireland
- The__Luke
Not arguing if it works or not, just that it punishes people who excel, and promotes mediocrity.
Similar to BOP in GT series, although that has been exploited by manufacturers in Le Mans to quite a degree.
This isn't a complaint about variety in racing, this is about quality of the competition. Sports shouldn't punish the winner of a game/match/race.
- 1,357
- United States
- RazorSharkz
The Nascar Nationwide Series could benefit from becoming a road course series. There are more than enough decent road courses in the States(also Canada and Mexico) that could host them. It would get rid of the problem of Cup Driver domination, would give the series it's own unique identity, and possibly make it as prestigious as the Cup Series eventually. They could easily come together for big weekends like Daytona, Brickyard etc. The cup series would still have the Trucks to offer support races(or the trucks could alternate support between the two). I think it would also attract different drivers and sponsors.
Also Nascar related since 1995 every track the Nascar Cup Series has added has been formulaic and boring(not the racing necesarily but the layouts) and every track taken away has been great.
Also Nascar related since 1995 every track the Nascar Cup Series has added has been formulaic and boring(not the racing necesarily but the layouts) and every track taken away has been great.
- 3,204
Are you insinuating that Ralf got better equipment when they were teammates at Williams? I don't know about that. He already beat Schumacher more often as it was (16-13 when both finished) and didn't look that great alongside Kimi.
Roo
Premium
- 7,349
- Hampshire, UK
- GTP_Roo
I was thinking about posting something sarcastic again to rail against all these "opinions" with no explanations - I was going with "everything is brilliant" - but the Panoz/Audi videos outlaw posted reminded me of a genuine unpopular opinion I hold.
If you go to a race and have to choose between earplugs or being deafened, then the cars are too loud. The worst offenders for this that I've experienced are the Corvettes and Ferraris in the WEC. The Audi LMP1 is the best sounding racecar around at the moment because you can actually hear the different sounds it makes, the pops and whistles of the hybrid and the air flowing over the car. The 'vettes and 4_8s just obliterate all sound and you just get a tide of horrible noise.
It's like the Audi is a regular light on in a room meaning you can actually see as opposed to the Corvette's million-candlepower-searchlight-directly-in-the-eyes. Given that noise is wasted energy from the combustion process that is not being used to make the car go faster, it always amazes me that people would rather the cars were noisy and slow than quiet and fast.
I've yet to hear the current crop of F1 and FE cars in person, but I'm hoping they live up to my expectations.
If you go to a race and have to choose between earplugs or being deafened, then the cars are too loud. The worst offenders for this that I've experienced are the Corvettes and Ferraris in the WEC. The Audi LMP1 is the best sounding racecar around at the moment because you can actually hear the different sounds it makes, the pops and whistles of the hybrid and the air flowing over the car. The 'vettes and 4_8s just obliterate all sound and you just get a tide of horrible noise.
It's like the Audi is a regular light on in a room meaning you can actually see as opposed to the Corvette's million-candlepower-searchlight-directly-in-the-eyes. Given that noise is wasted energy from the combustion process that is not being used to make the car go faster, it always amazes me that people would rather the cars were noisy and slow than quiet and fast.
I've yet to hear the current crop of F1 and FE cars in person, but I'm hoping they live up to my expectations.
- 16,432
- United Kingdom
- 24,883
- Somewhere.
I think he meant the other Schumacher brother. Which brings me to another unpopular opinion:
-Michael Schumacher relied heavily on his car being better than anyone else's and couldn't drive his way out of a wet paperbag if it wasn't.
- 12,123
- Liverpool
- CARBOYXJR
There's something brilliant about hearing old F5000 cars fire up, and feeling them shake the ground. It's a great reminder of how far technology has come.
Nothing annoys me more than seeing people refuse to watch racing because of how the cars sound. Even seeing people complain about car sounds drives me up the wall - a modern racing car should make as little noise as possible. I've seen V10 F1 cars run many years ago, and the only thing I can remember is that they sounded like drills. Utterly awful sound.
That is just flat out wrong, at least in the straight forward sense. Michael went to great lengths to make sure both he and the car was performing the best it/he could. He was the first to introduce many things in the sport, such as a speedometer. He spent hours upon hours testing in the car improving both himself and the car.
Here is a good in-depth, insider article into his technical ability and brilliant racing mind.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/driving-formula-1-michael-schumacher-some-background-willem-toet
It's no coincidence Ferrari was crap in the years before he joined and mostly crap not soon after he left. It obviously wasn't just down to him but he was a HUGE part of their success in those years.
Now the question is how you describe that skill, and if that puts him above other drivers who were just plonked in the best cars without themselves doing anything to get it there.
For me it's simple, I will always watch racing no matter how they sound but I would still be lying if I said I didn't miss this, at least on TV.
I've never heard one in the flesh but on TV that is just a sound I grew up with. It's the sound of F1.
- 16,432
- United Kingdom
They basically sound nothing like they do on TV. On TV they sound rubbish, in the flesh the old V10's sound awesome. It's mind boggling to think about the sheer amount of energy going on inside one of those engines, and it's all being squeezed through tolerances of a couple of microns...
... still doesn't reach inside and beat your internal organs the way a Top Fuel dragster does, but the V10 era did sound awesome.
